What does the city of Ember not have in Jeanne DuPrau's novel?

One can say there are many things the city of Ember does not have in Jeanne DuPrau's story. One of the most essential elements the city does not have is a natural source of light; a second is enough knowledge to be able to produce their own goods and make their own major repairs. Without a natural source of light, the people of Ember will be left in total darkness should their power source fail completely, darkness that is impossible to move around in and, thus, impossible to survive in. In addition, the city is not self-sustainable because the people do not have enough knowledge to produce their own goods or fix the generator; therefore, once they've completely lost their power source or all their stored goods run out, the people will perish.

Ember was built as an underground city of refuge to preserve the human population in the case of an apocalyptic event. Since the city is underground, the city is surrounded in complete darkness. The only source of light in the city is electrical, which is powered by a generator. The city of Ember was also populated by ordinary people, however, people who were not knowledgeable in sciences such as electricity or mechanics. As a result, no one in Ember knows how to fix the failing generator, as Doon learns when he asks the old man in charge of the generator how it works and receives the following reply:

Who knows? Our job is just to keep it from breaking down. If a part breaks, we got to put on a new one. If a part freezes up, we got to oil it (Chapter 3).

If the generator fails completely, the citizens will be submerged in complete darkness, which they won't be able to survive in for long.

Equally bad, we can tell the citizens do not have the knowledge to make their own goods because they only rely on what's available in the storerooms. The people have been led to believe that the Builders of the city have stocked the storerooms with enough to ensure the citizens will "always have enough of what they need," which isn't true (Chapter 2). The result is that the citizens' use of their resources without replenishing them will cause them to run out of what is essential for survival soon.

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

nouns - what do you call the person who passes the trophies to the prize giver/presenter?

The person who gives out the trophies to the winners are called award presenters. So what do u call the person who passes the trophies to the presenter? Thanks!

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.

Notes

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